Stand with Standing Rock — in Dallas

Have you been wanting to join the protesters in North Dakota to block construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, but couldn’t get up there to Stand With Standing Rock? Well here’s your chance: The protest comes to Dallas Friday, Oct. 21.

While most people have, by now, heard about the hundreds of people joining protestors the site to stop construction of the pipeline — and of the way the company and local law enforcement have used a variety of means to break up the protests, from pepper spray and attack dogs to arresting journalists and strip-searching protestors. But maybe you don’t know that the man heading up the company behind the pipeline lives right here in Dallas.
The Dakota Access Pipeline is a project of Dakota Access LLP, and that is a fully-owned subsidiary of Energy Transfer Partners. Kelcy Warren, who lives in Preston Hollow, is chairman and chief executive officer of ETP. You can read about him and his background here.
Warren is also the man who donated enough money to get naming rights to the city of Dallas’ Klyde Warren Park (he named it after his son), built over Woodall Rogers Freeway. And on Friday, he’s having a big party at the park.
According to a press release we received here at Dallas Voice, “In solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, the Native American community of Texas and supporters, including Arthur Redcloud of the Academy Award-winning film The Revenent, plan to protest the pipeline outside a lavish “Dinner & Dancing Under the Stars” fundraiser at Klyde Warren Park.” The purpose, according to the press release, is to “dramatically illlustrate the disparity between [Kelcy Warren] and the Native American community that is being tormented by his company, Energy Transfer Partners.”
Demonstrators will gather on the public sidewalk on the northeast side of Klyde Warren Park, near the covered stage area, from 6:30-10 p.m. to “call on ETP to cease all construction on the pipeline in North Dakota, as well as Trans-Pecos Pipeline in the Big Bend area of Texas. Both projects are evidence of a ‘profit before people and planet’ agenda,” organizers say.
Yolanda Bluehorse of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, said of Warren, “He named a park after his son, so he must understand the value of heritage for succeeding generations. However, that understanding must not extend past his own family, and certainly not to indigenous people, because he has shown no regard for our heritage or our sacred lands.”